Free Friday (Thursday Edition): Joe-Pourri!

OK, with the Browns playing tonight, we’re shuffling the deck a bit this week—let’s do another installment of Joe-Pourri, just a whole bunch of thoughts about a whole bunch of things as we close in on the end of the year.

Speaking of the end of the year, another reminder: We’ve got a 25% off sale going on until then. Would love to have you join us here.

Maybe you saw this the other day, but Dodgers pitcher Joe Kelly gave up his number 17 to Shohei … and in gratitude, Shohei gave a Porsche to Kelly’s wife, Ashley, who had waged a social media campaign to get Ohtani to the Dodgers by offering the number AND offering to change the name of their baby, Kai, to ShoKai. Just awesome stuff all the way around.

There are some really fun stories about what athletes have paid to get their uniform number. It should be said that Shohei is not the first athlete to give up a sports car in exchange for a uniform number. In 1995, Deion Sanders signed with the Cowboys during the season and he, obviously, wanted his iconic number 21. But a rookie cornerback, Alundis Brice, had the number and wasn’t giving it up.

“He’s going to have to come take it,’ Brice said. “I’m very serious.”

He added: “But anything is available for a price.”

It’s hard to know whether he was joking—in other stories, Brice was quoted as saying that it would be an honor to give up his number to Sanders—but we do know that Deion bought Brice a souped-up, metallic-blue BMW.

One Porsche later, Kelly’s number 17 is changing hands. (Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

In 1991, Mitch Williams signed as a free agent with the Phillies and he REALLY wanted number 28, because he’d always worn that number, and his wife ”had lots of jewelry with number 28 on it.”* Well, John Kruk wore 28 for the Phillies. Mitch Williams bought the number for two cases of beer.**

*Two years later, after a divorce, Mitch Williams took number 99, because coaches kept saying that he did everything at 99 mph. It was the highest number in Phillies history. Obviously.

**It was actually the fourth time that Kruk had changed his number. He wore 44 as a rookie, then, in his third year, briefly switched to No. 8, and then when he was traded to the Phillies, he took number 11. In 1990, he switched to 19, and then in 1991, he switched to 28. Basically, he didn’t care.

“It’s going to be hard for the team to retire your number,” a reporter told him.

“That all right,” he said, “I’ll be dead by then anyway.”

Adrian Beltré so desperately wanted his number 29 that he actually had it written into his contract when he signed with the Rangers. That didn’t stop him from giving Pedro Borbon a Rolex for ceding the number without complaint.

Actually, Rolexes might be the gift of choice for your jersey number. Jim Thome gave Alexi Casilla a Rolex for giving up number 25 with the Twins.

Tom Glavine, if given the choice, would have taken a different number than 47. But that was the number the Braves gave him when he was called up in August of 1987, and, you know, you get attached to such things. When he signed with the Mets, Super Joe McEwing was wearing No. 47. He gave it up, and Glavine paid for the construction of a McEwing baby nursery.

The story goes that Rickey Henderson got No. 24 in Oakland for going to an autograph session in place of veteran catcher Ron Hassey.

And then there’s A.J. Burnett, who wanted number 34 when he signed with the Pirates. Another pitcher, Daniel McCutchen, had the number, and, it just so happened that at that time, he and his wife were expecting a baby daughter. Burnett created a college fund for her. Give it up for that one.

It’s staggering to watch the Kansas City Chiefs offense struggle the way they are. In K.C., most of this blame is being put on the receivers, which makes sense. They lead the league in dropped passes and have made any number of catastrophic blunders this year.

But I was talking with a longtime NFL executive the other day, and he thinks the much bigger problem is their tackles. “Patrick Mahomes is getting killed out there,” he said. “He drops back and immediately has to start improvising, running around, it’s a disaster.” I think there’s something to that.

We saw “Wonka” the other day. You know what? Fun. Total fun. The songs were pretty catchy, the characters were all likable, it feels to me that there used to be a lot more movies like this, you know, light, entertaining, escapist, the world isn’t in danger, life as we know it isn’t in the balance, there’s never any doubt that it will all work out in the end. I’m not saying ALL movies should be such cotton candy fare, obviously that would be terrible, but it’s comforting to watch movies like “Wonka” every now and again.

The Dodgers introduced Japanese pitching superstar Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Wednesday, and it sure sounded like he never had any intention of signing anywhere but L.A. (even if the Dodgers had not signed Ohtani). He just needed to hear that the Dodgers wanted him as badly as he wanted the Dodgers. They did.

I think this means that the Yankees and Mets, no matter how much money they threw in, were never really players for Yamamoto. In fact, Yamamoto’s agent said that his likely second choice was the Giants. Honestly, at this point, the Giants should probably have “Second choice” T-shirts made.

I want to briefly thank all of you for your thoughts about Substack and the best way for JoeBlogs to go forward. You have a wide range of opinions, and I very much appreciate your thoughtfulness on this. As you might expect, I’m very carefully weighing all of our options and talking to everybody involved. I’m certainly not planning on rushing into anything. I promise to report back when I’ve come to a decision.

Just a reminder that Joe Blogs is a reader-supported newsletter, and I’d love and appreciate your support.

OK, this kind of blows my mind — more than 2,500 of you have already taken the Hall of Fame survey! Fantastic. You are providing such interesting (and, in many cases, surprising) data. We’re going to unveil everything as part of our January Hall of Fame Extravaganza.

I’m kind of blown away by the Broncos’ decision to bench Russell Wilson. No, I hadn’t been following it all that closely, but still. I mean, has Wilson been great this year? No. Obviously not. But he’s been pretty efficient—26 touchdowns against 8 picks, completing 66% of his passes—and, I mean, it’s not like the Broncos offense is loaded with playmakers.

I’ve got to think it comes down to coach Sean Payton wanting to make this team his own, and he doesn’t feel like he can do that with Wilson. He was probably unhappy that Wilson was there when he arrived. There are money implications, too; Wilson’s deal is pretty complicated, and apparently, an injury could cost the Broncos a boatload more money. They reportedly threatened to bench him weeks ago unless he reworked his contract.

But, I mostly think it’s Payton. I remember when Bill Belichick cut Bernie Kosar back in 1993. Kosar was not playing well, but he was a hometown hero… Belichick obviously didn’t give a damn about that last part. “Dad: They cut me,” was the heartbreaking headline in the Cleveland Plain Dealer the day after Kosar was released, and I can only imagine Belichick in his office laughing his head off. Now, finally, this was his team.

I suspect Payton probably feels the same way. He says that the benching is to provide “an offensive spark,” and maybe it will do just that, who knows, but their backup quarterback is Jarrett Stidham, who is on his third team in four years, so I kind of doubt the math adds up. This was an “it’s my show now” move by Payton, and Russell Wilson will be somewhere else as soon as possible.

OK, so, I don’t think I’ve mentioned this here, but the BBWAA Career Excellence Award (formerly known as the Spink Award)* and the Frick Award for announcers have been named for 2024.

Longtime baseball writer Gerry Fraley, who died in 2019, won the BBWAA award.

Beloved Red Sox radio announcer Joe Castiglione won the Frick.

Congratulations to them both.

*The BBWAA Career Excellence Award is a terrible name and should immediately be changed. I understand the reluctance, since the award was called the Spink Award for so long (after Sporting News editor and one of the most influential baseball writers ever, J.G. Taylor Spink), until some of Spink’s more racist views pushed the BBWAA to go the “Washington Football Team” route. You don’t want to immediately jump back into that fray, I suppose.

But the award should be named after SOMEBODY. My recommendation would be Ring Lardner, who was the second recipient of the award and was an utterly marvelous and admired baseball writer. He loved writing baseball (at least until the 1919 Black Sox soured him), and his baseball novel, You Know Me Al, is an American classic. Plus, “the Lardner Award” has a fantastic ring to it.

Of course, you already know I think they should change the name of the Frick Award to the Scully Award, but that’s a whole other thing.

Hey, if you feel like it, I’d love if you’d share this post with your friends!

I’m reading my friend Tommy Tomlinson’s book, Dogland, which will be published in April, and it’s so good and funny and bright and optimistic that I think it just might change the world. I hope so, anyway.

In addition to WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL, which is taking up 23.5 hours of my every day—I have to admit I’m loving it more every single day—I am also in the process of writing a new introduction and special list of five for the WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL edition that will be published in the UK this spring. If you are a UK baseball fan (I’m speaking to both of you) and have any thoughts on what you’d like to see in either that intro or that list of magical UK baseball moments, please send me an email!

We’re down to the final days of voting for the PosCast Holiday Draft. We’ve got a pretty tight race going. You have three more days to vote here, if you haven’t already.

Today’s Baseball-Reference Random Page: This boxscore from a July 8, 1966, game between the Reds and Giants. The Giants won this one 7-2 behind homers from Tom Haller and Jim Davenport, and Juan Marichal threw a complete game without giving up an earned run.

The Reds’ cleanup hitter that year was Gordy Coleman, who became an icon in Cincinnati after he finished playing. He was sort of the Reds’ traveling salesman; he went all over the Midwest pitching Reds baseball to Rotary Clubs and Optimists Clubs and so on. He also did some TV commentary. He was a very nice man.

JoeBlogs Week in Review

Saturday: The PosCast Holiday Draft VII!

Tuesday: Browns Diary, Week 16: It’s a Wonderful Life

Wednesday: My Ultimate Baseball Hall of Fame Survey